Wine & Spirits - February 2021 - 19

" McLaren Vale is going absolutely berserk on new varieties, " he says
You don't have to be an Aussie to fall in love with contemporary
with unsuppressed glee, having led the charge starting in the 1990s. McLaren Vale grenache. It was ancient vines in Barossa, in fact, that
At the time, he went all in on viognier when his growers were pushing
caught the attention of an American. Richard Betts was working as a
back on planting more shiraz, for fear of a glut. They wanted to grow
sommelier in the early 2000s when he got turned on to Château Rayas
white grapes. " I said, Well, don't plant more chardonnay or riesling or
(it wasn't as expensive as it is today). That wine convinced him that grewhatever. Viognier could work here. After about two years, I added up
nache could be " a warm-climate analogy of pinot noir, " he told me in
the plantings we had and with our growers we had about 140 acres of
video interview, joined by his wife and winegrowing partner, Carla Rza
viognier planted. " That was before he had a crop. Fortunately, viognier
Betts. " In the best years, you could mistake Rayas for a great Burgundy. "
worked and he is still buying all the grapes to blend with his own for one He zeroed in on the sandy soil that made Rayas unique in Châteauneufof his most successful white wines, The Hermit Crab.
du-Pape and, determined to find a place he could make his own, he went
He has since expanded to a range of new red varieties, starting with looking for grenache grown in sand in Sardinia, Spain and California.
tempranillo and souzão for his first Sticks and Stones blend in 2002.
A wine from a side project made by Chris Ringland, RBJ Theologicum,
When he found the old-vine parled Betts to the Barossa, and the
cel of souzão, the grower was callDry Grown Grenache from Robert
ing it cinao-maybe cinsault? No,
O'Callaghan at Rockford led him
the grower told him, it was Portuthrough Ebenezer and Bethany
guese. As the fruit set he noticed
districts to Vine Vale. " Eventuthat the grapes were small and
ally, I found my way to Christian
the yields were limited: " It looked
Knute at Rusden, and he was maknothing like cinsault. And it made
ing wine like that, specifically with
this wine as black as black can
grenache. And I thought: Here it is;
be-really exotic earth characters
here's a home. Let's get started. "
and really lively minerality. It had
Later, after he and Carla joined
acidity and very fine minerality. "
forces, they began making An
A Portuguese grower at a trade
Approach to Relaxation wines,
show gave him a lead to souzão,
including Sucette, their ancientand ampelography confirmed it.
vine grenache from Vine Vale.
Their 2017, tasted for this issue,
Meanwhile, he had planted temshows how old-vine grenache,
pranillo on ancient red-brown soils
planted in the right place, may
over limestone, two miles from the
be a predictor of what some of
coast. " It gets a lot of tannin off
the new, alternate vines might
that geology, " he has found. " Temproduce as they mature into the
pranillo does end up being a reladecades to come.
tively tannin-driven wine, still perIt was the year when the Betfumed out the end and not heavy.
tses purchased 16 acres of land,
It has a bright spice, a fragrant red
including a 10.5-acre plot of vines
character. " He blended the templanted in the late 19th century,
pranillo and souzão with old-vine
growing on their own roots in
grenache, to lend earthiness to the
deep sand.
young-vine fruit for his early Sticks
" We sit at the bottom of the
and Stones bottlings. As his tempranillo vines have matured, he
gullies that come down from Eden
finds he needs less of the old-vine
Valley and the Barossa Ranges
GRANITE SANDS SUSTAIN 19TH-CENTURY GRENACHE
grenache for the blend.
into the Vine Vale, " Richard
VINES AT THE BETTS'S VINE VALE VINEYARD.
In terms of the contempoexplained. " Over time, quartzite
rary climate, the variety that has
and granite has eroded and come
impressed him for its resilience is mencía. " It just yields no problem and
down through these gullies into this little alluvial fan, this little puddle
has good vigor. Eight or nine years ago, we grafted some merlot over to of sand.
mencía and negroamaro, and the negroamaro was even more vigorous.
" The sand is almost a visualization of the wind. Those same gullies
that deposited the sand bring those cold winds and, yes, they can defiWe had two crops of negroamaro, and it was light and fresh; really, it's just
too cold for negroamaro here. But then, even worse, it was too hot at verai- nitely screw things up at flowering but, at other times, its good for vine
son-too much sun and heat-sunburn wiped out 90 percent of the crop health. " The wind also emphasizes the radical shift in temperature from
two years in a row. " He decided to graft those vines over to mencía-grow- day to night-if it is 100 degrees [Fahrenheit] during the day, winds casing right alongside those sunburnt vines, it was untouched. Osborn har- cading down the gullies into Vine Vale can drive it down to the mid-50s
vests his mencía a full five weeks after shiraz, and the fruit holds its fresh within an hour after the sun sets. " It makes for a much cooler area than
dark-cherry flavors in the wine that he calls The Anthropocene Epoch.
the rest of the Barossa. Once you drive from the Vine Vale out into the

" The sand is almost a visualization of the wind. The same gullies that deposited the sand bring the cold winds. "
-RICHARD BETTS, AN APPROACH TO RELAXATION

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Wine & Spirits - February 2021

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